The Master Shark's Mate (Fire & Rescue Shifters 5)

“Oh.” Nita fell silent for a moment. “Guess I should be careful what I wish for. I was worried about you, Ma.”

“Is that abuela?” Ximena yelled in the background. “Manny! Manny! Abuela isn’t dead after all!”

“Abuela!” Manny sounded about to burst into tears. “Come back from Heaven! I miss you!”

“Uh, the kids may have been a little worried too,” Nita said, over the howls and sobbing promises to be good if she’d just come home.

It took fifteen minutes for Martha to reassure five-year-old Manny that she hadn’t actually become an angel, and that furthermore she was absolutely, definitely coming home at the end of the week. Then of course Ximena needed to talk to her abuela for just as long as Manny had, and then Nita’s wife Xo had a question about the upcoming church bake sale, and then Martha needed to talk to Nita again about Roddie, because if he didn’t stop provoking the rattlesnakes someone was going to get bit, and oh, while we’re talking…

By the time Martha finally managed to hang up, her voice was as hoarse as Finn’s. She sighed as she dropped the phone back onto the dresser.

“Sorry,” she said to him, taking her hand off his mouth at last. “Didn’t want them to hear you.”

He nodded, but his face had gone back to that rock-like impassiveness he’d had when they’d first met. Throughout the long call, she’d had a strange sense of him retreating further into himself.

She issued a smile at him, hoping to spark one in return. “It’s just that we’d have lost the whole day to answering fool questions if they’d realized what was up. You know how families are.”

He looked down, rolling something between his palms. “No. I do not.”

She kicked herself for walking straight into that one. Whatever shark families were like, she doubted they were as nosy—not to mention noisy—as a coyote pack. Especially her own brood.

“What’ve you got there?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.

He folded his fingers, hiding whatever it was in his vast fist. “You asked me something last night.”

She blinked at him, thrown. “I did?”

“Whether I wanted to bite you.” He still didn’t look at her.

“Oh.” Her heart thumped against her ribs.

He didn’t know what my pack was like, what he was letting himself in for. Now he does.

She swallowed. “Well…do you?”

He turned his head at last, and the intensity of his gray eyes took her breath away. “Yes. I want to be your mate. Fully.”

Holy Mother of God, did he have a wedding ring in his hand? Martha couldn’t even begin to imagine why he would be carrying one around, but it was the only thing she could think of to explain the look on his face.

“Yes,” she said, blinking back sudden, strange tears. “I want that too.”

His knuckles whitened. “But I am what I am. I am the Master Shark, and the Voice of the Pearl Empress. No matter how I might wish it otherwise, I have responsibilities that cannot be set aside.”

Her heart plummeted right down to the socks she wasn’t wearing. Of course he wasn’t free to leave the sea. He’d given her his true name, but he was still the Master Shark. Doubtless he had responsibilities she couldn’t even imagine.

He looked back down at his closed fist. “I had thought to ask you to join me in Atlantis,” he said, very quietly.

“What? Me?” She stared at him in disbelief. “I’m a coyote, not a fish!”

“The Pearl Empress has personally granted permission for you to come, and there are ways for dry-landers to live under the sea. If you wanted.”

Oh, she wanted. She wanted him. But enough to give up her whole life? Everything she knew? Her family?

“Finn.” She put her hand on the side of his face, making him meet her eyes again. No matter what, they had to be honest with each other. “I want to be with you. More than anything. But you heard my family. They fall apart when I don’t call for a day, what do you think would happen if I announced I was taking off to live under the sea? Do you even have cellphones in Atlantis?”

He shook his head, the barest motion.

“So what do we do?” Martha whispered.